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Where has my hard drive gone?!?

12
2006-08-13 17:21:50, Category: Programming & Design
ok, i have apparently a 40gb harddrive according to the stuff i got with my laptop, i just looked in "my computer" and i have a capacity of 33.1 gb apparently! HELP!! I'm really confused even if you rounded 33.1 it should go down to 30, they can't seriously round by 7gb surely?! that's false advertising i've been told windows etc should only take 2 gb

Answers

  1. Raven

    On 2006-08-13 17:28:34


    its the preloaded stuff on the HD. WinXP (ur Os), all the program files like for WMP, Solitare, etc. its the preloaded stuff and the start-up files.

  2. Tim

    On 2006-08-13 17:35:52


    This is too much lost space to be the manufacturers gigabyte round-up. (Companies that make harddrive are known for advertising the diskspace with a type of "gigabyte" with 1000 megs, instead of by 1024 megs...but you would only be losing a couple gigs then.) Sounds to me like your drive is partitioned. Perhaps your computer came with a restore or utility partition? To check: From Windows explorer, right click on your C:\ and select Properties. Under the Hardware tab it will list all your Drives. That's what you got. Select your drive you want to see. click Properties. Under the Volumas Tab, click Populate. This will fill a list of Volumes (aka partitions) on the drive. And how big they are. There should be a C:\, with perhaps 33,900 mb. And maybe another volume?

  3. CeeVee

    On 2006-08-13 17:56:38


    Check out the slack space on your hard drive. Click on the start button, then Administrative Tools, then Computer Management. When the Computer Management window comes up click on Disk Management. The lower right portion of you screen should show you a pictorial view of each of your disks. Do you have a piece of your disk that has not been formatted ? If you do the simply format it and it will appear as an extra drive.

  4. C_HEWISH

    On 2006-08-14 09:20:47


    The hard drive is 40Gb, but unfortunatly the 7Gb is taken up by a File Allocation Table(FAT). This is like a huge index file for your hard drive. Think of a filing cabinet, with loads of files all placed randomally inside. You will need some form on index, so you would keep a record of where everything is in the first few files. Unfortunatly, as hard drives have got bigger, the larger the index files need to be. A catch 22 if you like. Hope that helps

  5. t3h1

    On 2006-08-13 17:38:15


    It is a sneaky trick by the hard drive manufacturers and it is used all the time. It is because 1gb is actually 1024mb, 1kb is 1024 bytes etc. the actual space and the usable space are different, there is nothing you can do about this. i would say there is something missing though if you are losing almost 7gb from the 40. you should lose roughly 10gb for every 160gb of space quoted, it sounds liek your drive is formatted incorrectly and will need reformatting (after a full backup) and then repartitioning to regain all of its space. you will need a program such as partition manager, google it.

  6. shmifty_14

    On 2006-08-13 17:25:26


    They round the numbers up (it is equivalent to 40,000,000,000 bytes).

  7. crazyhumans

    On 2006-08-13 17:33:22


    Are you talking total capacity or free space? Check both and it should be roughly the amount you are "missing". That means that all the programs installed on your systems is taking that much space. If your total capacity is showing 33.1GB instead of 40GB, check to see if the drive has been partitioned

  8. © 2006. Sammy Z.

    On 2006-08-13 17:31:42


    A real GB is 1024 Mb, but a retailer's Gb is 1000 Mb. It's pretty lame. Your figure of 33.1 sounds like the available free space, as 40,000 Mb would be 39.06 Gb, not 33.1.

  9. ST3V3N

    On 2006-08-13 17:27:38


    cuz like 8 gb or how ever much is missing is for the Windows you have installed on it and like the stuff like the internet and stuff on it

  10. Powerful_Turtle

    On 2006-08-13 17:27:08


    Your programs like Windows and IE will take up space.

  11. cjlintexas

    On 2006-08-13 17:27:29


    a free amount of 33Gb? The other approx 7 is taken up by programs and such?

  12. mikewonaus

    On 2006-08-13 17:32:52


    About 7 gb are used for your programs but that was seven minutes ago so no one can tell how much more you've downloaded since then. And I've noticed that by the time you read this there will be at least seven more Yahoo!Answers which will reinforce my speculations & you'll begin to believe that you are not due for any major setbacks for at least 7 hours! By the way, this is sarcasum....umm.sarcasum...gurgle ...gurgle...gurgle! [2 mo points] ;)